Mikheil Saakashvili was transferred from the Tbilisi clinic Vivamed to Correctional Facility No. 12 in Rustavi without prior notice to his relatives or lawyers. Georgia’s penitentiary service said the former president had been under doctors’ supervision since May 12, 2022, but that his condition is now satisfactory and no longer requires inpatient treatment.
Saakashvili has been in custody since October 2021. In 2022, after several hunger strikes, he was moved from prison to the private hospital. Under existing court rulings, Georgia’s third president is due to remain imprisoned until April 1, 2034. In March, among other decisions, the court gave him nine years in a misuse-of-funds case and another four and a half years for illegally crossing the border.
Shortly before the transfer, prosecutors brought a new charge against Saakashvili. Part of the case stems from his sharp remark that free elections in Georgia would be possible only after people took a “selfie” in front of the shark aquarium in Bidzina Ivanishvili’s residence. Investigators say that through social media posts and video addresses he publicly urged supporters to fight, resist aggressively and seize government buildings. Saakashvili says the accusations are absurd and politically motivated.
At the same time, pressure on other opponents of the ruling Georgian Dream party has intensified. The Prosecutor General’s Office announced new criminal proceedings against eight prominent opposition leaders, six of whom are already in custody. The stated charges include sabotage, assisting the hostile activity of a foreign state, financing actions against the constitutional order, and calls for a violent change of power.
Separate accusations were also brought against former prime minister Giorgi Gakharia. He is accused over the violent dispersal of protests during the June 2019 “Gavrilov Night” events and of abuse of office for authorizing an additional police post near the village of Chorchana close to the boundary line with South Ossetia. The article notes that Gakharia had previously moved to Germany.
Lawyer Shalva Chaladze said Saakashvili had not been warned about the transfer, and that the Ukrainian consul’s inability to visit him, along with unusual procedures at the clinic, suggested preparations for new charges or a change in his status.
The opposition links these developments to the broader political crisis that followed the 2024 parliamentary elections, which pro-Western parties said were falsified. Saakashvili’s allies argue that his case has become part of a wider campaign to weaken the opposition and signal a tougher line by the Georgian authorities.